Friday was the fourth birthday of my old friend, this blog. The blog was born on the same day as I was - August 22. It was inspired by my need to focus on anything really which at that point in time happened to be New Age spirituality.
The blog made a difference in my life. It listened when no one else could. Never judging. Always available. And it did, indeed, help me focus. Over time, it became a bridge between my steadily expanding world and a long list of others. The blog led me to books and courses and workshops and people. It allowed me to share what I was learning and in so doing in some small part repay the debt I owed others - for the wisdom they so freely shared with me.
The blog became a channel for my own spiritual experience and it in turn helped me to define that experience. As I followed that current I learned things I did not expect to learn. And that continues till this day. Finally, I think, it has led me back to the place I most need to be.
I was poet when I was young and then, for the most part, life took over. In the late nineties and early 2000s however things changed. I wrote a series of manuscripts. Born of my own strong need to escape disappointment and personal tragedy they were wild, impassioned and ultimately flawed - though not perhaps irretrievably. But the writing of them taught me a few things about the craft writing. And my work here has taught me too.
I am now following the wisdom of another not so New Age writer, Ray Bradbury. He was born on August 22nd and his writing is sharp and poetic and filled with passion. Perhaps because we share a birthday, his writing method appeals to me and I have promised myself that I will take the advice he gives in Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity and write 1000 non-blog words per day.
These words and the time it takes to write them have to come from somewhere and I may be cutting back on things. Less workshops. Less radio episodes. Less down time. But I will still be here every week for as long as I can type, paying my debt to those who have inspired me and those who care to read what I have written - and to my old friend The Mystic Review as well.
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